Bread, Lovely Bread!

36.51, 35.52, 36.53, 36.54, 36.55, and 35.56 Try 50 new recipes


Apparently, if you ask me, I don't like bread. This is true. I don't like bread. Except that maybe it's not quite true. I make a lot of bread. In the not again recipe post, two of the four recipes were bread. I asked for a bread maker (and received it) for my birthday last year. And, the most telling point, all of the following recipes are bread of one kind or another. I think what I don't like is grocery store bread. Homemade bread, I'm good with that.

Lemon Lavender Loaf

I don't usually use mixes when I cook or bake, but this is an exception. I received this as a thank you gift from a cousin who bought it at another cousin's Lavender Farm, but it's also something I would buy for myself without hesitation. Let me tell you though, I got a lot of grief for using a mix when I made it...

Here's the ingredient list. See, nothing I wouldn't put in a loaf if I was making it from scratch. It's all good.

When it's done, you make a lemon glaze and pour it over top and it's finger smacking good. Those people who gave me grief because I used a mix? They loved it too. There wasn't a crumb left when they went home!

Baking Powder Biscuits

I have a baking powder biscuit recipe that I think might be from my grade eight cooking class. It does the job, but it's a bit blah. I went on a search for a better recipe and thankfully I only had to try one to find one that I liked. Canadian Living to the rescue again!

Quite possibly the reason why these are infinitely better than the grade eight cooking class version is because instead of shortening, they have butter, a whole cup of real butter. We don't have these very often because biscuits are best hot out of the oven and we don't each need 1/3 of a cup of butter in our evening meal. Even if it tastes delicious!

Cheese Scones

After the tomato soup hater discovered Jamie Oliver's tomato soup recipe and decided we should live on it (that would be me), we tried a bunch of things with it. Grilled cheese was the perfect companion, but we could only eat so much grilled cheese. We had baking powder biscuits and they were yummy too. Then I made these delicious Good Housekeeping scones. Oh, were they ever yummy. We'll be eating that combination again when the cooler weather returns (I know, June has been horrible, but I feel like I should at least try to eat summery food)

Whole Wheat Cinnamon Swirl Bread

This recipe comes from Jenna at Eat Live Run and it is sooooooo good and soooooo easy.

I would definitely recommend this recipe if you want to try making bread but you're scared of yeast - it's pretty easy and making the bread isn't time consuming, it's the rising time that makes it seem like bread is so much work. But while it's rising you can just do something else.

I keep meaning to try adding raisins to this and making raisin bread. I think it would be super yummy! I increased the cinnamon a little because I love cinnamon, but otherwise this is a perfect treat! [I blogged about it here but I didn't count it for some reason, probably the messed up brain thing]

Whole Wheat Bread

When I finally got myself sorted out and bought some vital wheat gluten, this is the bread recipe we landed on for our everyday bread.

It's one of the recipes in the book that came with the machine and everyone loves it. It's 100% whole wheat and it has molasses in it so it's a lovely dark colour.

I did discover though that while our machine will make a two pound loaf, I'm better off making a one or one and half pound loaf. The bigger ones get caught under the basket handle. And the bread is fresher if I make three one pound loaves in two weeks than if I make two two pound loaves. And there are fewer bread crumbs for the freezer.

Quick White Loaf

I've only made this a few times. Usually when I have an oh crap there's no bread for tomorrow's lunches moment. The quick white cycle on the bread maker only takes an hour. I need 4 1/2 hours to make a whole wheat loaf (the quick whole wheat loaf is just too dense)

The white loaf is dense too, but not as dense as the quick whole wheat.

Oops...I guess that's seven in one post...I'm not going to count the last one! If you made it this far you must love bread as much as I do!

Maybe not again...

36.46, 36.47, 36.48, 36.49 and 36.50 Try 50 new recipes

So, ever cook something that just wasn't all that good? Yeah, I have. A few times...here are a few of the recipes we tried that we probably won't be trying again.

"Sourdough" Bread

Alex and J gave me a bread maker for my birthday last year, but it took me ages to actually use. We were having something for dinner that went well with homemade bread, but because I hadn't actually taken the time to figure out how the bread maker worked or to buy stuff like vital gluten, I couldn't make bread in the bread maker.

This "sourdough" recipe came from the Good Housekeeping Cookbook. It's not really sourdough bread; it uses yogurt and water as the wet ingredients. I knew this recipe was a disaster before I baked it...you don't proof the yeast - you mix it in with the flour and then add the wet ingredients. [Our pizza dough recipe is the same, but it ALWAYS works] The dough didn't really rise at all, but I figured I'd bake it and see what happened.

It came out looking like this. It was crunchy and hard and not very good. I'm not sure what I did wrong - maybe my yogurt had too much fat, maybe the yeast was a bit too old, who knows...anyway, we're not having this again...

Apricot Pecan Bread

This was the first bread recipe I made in the bread maker...I chose this one partly because it looked yummy and partly because I still had no vital gluten and this recipe didn't need any. The bread maker is supposed to have a beep function that tells me when to add the add-ins, in this case apricots and pecans.

What's wrong with this picture?

Yeah, the bread is done but there are no add-ins. I'm not sure what happened, but the beep never beeped. I sat and waited and waited and waited...

At least this one wasn't a total loss...it was still yummy bread. I might try this one again. I've now mastered the bread maker, so even if it doesn't beep, I know what it sounds like when it's mixing in the extra stuff, so I could probably get the goodies in...

Breakfast Quinoa

We like quinoa at our house. Even J likes "special rice". My sister has been telling us for ages how much she likes quinoa for breakfast, so I went in search of a recipe to try. We have had luck with pretty much every Martha Stewart recipe we've tried, so I figure her Breakfast Quinoa was a safe bet. It also had blueberries in it and since we add blueberries to our oatmeal pretty much everyday, I thought it would be good.

Not so much. J and I had something else for breakfast this morning and Alex, who will usually eat pretty much everything, called me at work to find out if I'd be gravely insulted if he threw it out since he couldn't eat his either. I don't think anything was wrong with the recipe - I asked a couple of breakfast quinoa eaters and they all thought the recipe looked fine - I think maybe the people in our house just like their quinoa in savoury dishes...

Black Beans

We have two slowcookers. I love them. I wish I had more good slowcooker recipes. I've made a few recipes that Jenna at Eat, Live, Run has posted and had great results, so when she posted slowcooker black beans and gushed about them, I decided I had to try them!

They weren't horrible, but they weren't even close to as good as she said they were. We ate them. But they were boring. Because of the length of time you cook this particular recipe they weren't even really good for using in other recipes.

So yeah. Sometimes things don't work out in our kitchen...I'm just glad that most of the time what we eat is most certainly edible and often tasty too.

This brings me to 50 recipes, but because I wasn't paying very close attention, I did more than 50 and because I've got pictures and half written posts, I'm going to [eventually] post them all...Yay, one more to cross off the list!

Cracking Cracklin' Dinner

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Burgers are tasty, but I'm a bit scared of them. My dad makes awesome burgers, but he doesn't really use a recipe. He has a recipe in his head that includes eggs and dashes of this and that, but it's not written down anywhere. And I've had some yucky homemade burgers before, so I'm much happier to leave burgers for our visits to Kelowna in the summer.

Except that sometime we want burgers and we're not in Kelowna and we don't want to go out to eat.

Enter my new best friend, Jamie Oliver. I bought Alex Jamie's Food Revolution for his birthday (Father's Day?) a few years ago because I figured if Jamie Oliver could motivate and teach people who had no skills with food to cook, he could teach Alex, who was a prep cook eons ago, to cook. Except that I use the cookbook far more often than Alex. Oh well, we're married. We can share.

Now, we made this in the winter, so a salad didn't seem right as an accompaniment to Jamie's Cracking Burgers and oven roasted potatoes. After some thought and some consultation with the chief menu planner at our house, we settled on roasted cauliflower à la Mama Pea. I discovered this recipe after Kath at Kath Eats made it one night and talked about how expensive (!) cauliflower is - I don't know where she buys her cauliflower but at a few dollars for an entire head of cauliflower, it's a pretty good deal if you ask me. Anyway, I'd never had the Whole Foods version and we were out of curry powder, so I mixed up some cumin and coriander (at about a 1:3 ratio) and left out the stevia and cilantro. It was delicious. Alex and J both loved it. You can just barely see it just to the right of the burger.

We made that cauliflower over and over and over again all winter. I quickly figured out that the peas should be added closer to the end unless you want really crunchy peas, but yum! Everyone we fed this to loved it!

Oh, and the burgers? They're scrumptious and if my dad's not around to make me burgers, well, now I know I'm fully capable of making my own burgers and they will taste good too!

Picnic at the new park

19.4 Go on 10 "adventures" 
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Our adventures are things that either we'd like to do with J or things that J has requested. Well, last week, J kept asking we could have an adventure. I asked her what kind of adventure she was thinking of and she told me she wanted to go on a picnic at the new park and take Daddy so he could play at the new park.

The new park is actually the playground beside the water park at Granville Island. We actually had J's birthday party there last summer. Once the water park closed for the season, construction fences went up around the old adventure playground and down it came. It has been replaced with a much better playground - definitely better suited the various age groups that use the park. It has one of those cool rubber floors (is that what you'd call it? surfaces?) that reduce injuries and kind of bounce when you walk on it. It's got some great playground equipment including the merry-go-round with the ropes below and it even has a kid operated water feature.

We staked out our picnic spot, in the shade, on the big field, but just off the path to the playground. J rode her bike and insisted on keeping her helmet on for most of the time we were there.

Three or four families of geese roamed the grassy field beside us. J loved watching them - from a distance of course. We explained to her how the parents would protect their babies and that she needed to stay far away from them so that they knew she wasn't going to touch their babies.

J went grocery shopping with me on Friday night and she got to pick all of the food for the picnic - she is currently in love with croissant sandwiches, so those were on the menu along with veggies and dip, oranges, strawberries and of course, a picnic wouldn't be complete without a special treat. J helped make Emeril's Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. They were good, but I think the next time I'd cut the sugar in half and use powdered sugar instead of granulated and brown...maybe it's because I buy natural peanut butter, but the sugars gave the cookies a really granular texture. They still tasted excellent though!

After lunch J and Alex played in the park for ages - this is the new fangled merry-go-round with it's cage of ropes to keep the kids from falling out...although it doesn't stop them from climbing the outside and spinning around....

We left not long after this - the family beside us started feeding the geese and the mother (I think that's the female) was not impressed (if you click the picture, you can see she's hissing at the people) and the geese got closer and closer to our blanket and then kids started TOUCHING them.

Do not anger the mother goose! We decided before the hissing turned to lunging and wing flapping we'd leave...our not-too-subtle preschooler loudly exclaiming the entire way, "They shouldn't be touching those birds. Birds don't like it when you touch their babies. Geese will get mad and hurt you if you get too close. Birds don't like people food, it hurts their tummies."

Oh, adventures with J!

Creamy Potato and Dill Soup

Mmm...yesterday I made soup for our lunches this week and it turned out so well. We all tasted it before dinner last night and I think if I hadn't already started dinner, we would have just had soup.

We'll be eating this all winter.

3 lbs potatoes (about 8 small), peeled and diced*
1 large carrot, diced
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp butter (you could substitute oil, but butter gives it more flavour)
4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 cups water
2 Tbsp dried dill
2-3 strips of bacon, optional
salt and pepper to taste

*Medium to large dice is fine

Melt the butter in a heavy pot over low heat. Add the onion and garlic, stir occasionally until soft, do not let it brown. Add the carrots and cover. Let it sweat for 6-8 minutes. Add potatoes, cover and sweat for 3-4 more minutes. Add the broth, water and dill and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until carrots and potatoes are very tender.

The soup was tasty without the bacon, but Alex and I both felt it was missing something. We had bacon meatballs for dinner and as I was preparing the bacon for the meatballs, I realized that, hey, bacon would be awesome in this soup. I chopped it and cooked it in a frying pan, drained it well and added the bacon to the soup. Now it's heavenly...Alex thinks it would be yummy with grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream on top too..

Getting ready to hibernate

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I love long weekends.

This weekend turned into a hibernating weekend for us...there was lots of cooking, some furniture rearranging, some deep cleaning, a ton of laundry and way too much time spent with the computer. Oh and what felt like a never ending sink of dishes.

We're trying to get all of our CDs loaded onto the iPod and it's a huge task. We have between 500 and 600 CDs. That's a lot of CDs. I did close to 200 over the summer and over the weekend we've done another almost 300. That leaves not quite 100 left. I'm going crossed-eyed. But if I get stuck on a desert island with my iPod, I have 17 days worth of music to listen to...if the batteries last that long.

One of the things on my list for the weekend was to lift up the mats on the living room floor and clean under them (I tend to do my "spring cleaning" in November. You know. To get ready for Christmas). We're having Christmas here this year and that will mean rearranging the furniture in our living room so that the tree has a home.

Because our living room is wide open and has only two walls there are limited places to put the tree. And by limited, I mean one. The tree has to go where the couch is, so the couch needs to move...

This is what J and I have come up with...she was SO excited to help. She kept going in to tell Alex that the furniture MOVED! The rocking chair probably needs to leave, but my inner pack rat is not letting it go...just yet...

Alex and I are enjoying our cosy new living room...I think we might stay with this arrangement even after the tree is gone. For some reason it feels a whole lot bigger than it did before....

I also spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen this weekend...I've been trying to fill the freezer so that nights I have to go out after work are not crazy with meal prep...

So, we had Black Bean Chili (I love my slow cooker) and then last night I froze some and we added a corn bread topping to the rest and baked it (inspired by Oh She Glows). J told us she didn't like the chili anymore, but she liked the cake, except the crunchy parts. I used the corn meal muffin recipe from the Purity cookbook - it's the one we always used when I was a kid. It's pretty much this recipe.

And I finally made the spaghetti with bacon meatballs recipe from Real Simple. There was so much going on in our kitchen that I ended up heating the sauce in the small slow cooker because I didn't have an unoccupied pot big enough to hold it!

It was a hit...Alex and J loved it, although J loved the soup even more. I made some potato and dill soup for our lunches this week and J had a little as an appetizer, but a little turned into THREE bowls! I guess I'll be making that again.

It was tasty. Recipe to come!

It was a good weekend...I'm glad to go back to work tomorrow though...my hands are feeling the effects of all those dishes!

Pulled Pork (Beef)

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Last week on our menu for Sunday we had written pulled pork. We were looking forward to this dinner all week. Except when I went to the grocery store, I couldn't find a pork roast over 1 lb. And it was late enough that the butcher had gone home, so I was left with what there was in the meat case.

I hummed and hawed and discovered there were three pork roasts that added up to close to 3.5 lbs, but they were three different cuts and together they cost, oh, $38! That's just way too much to pay for pulled pork! But beef was on sale. I got a 3.5 lb roast for $10. A huge improvement!

I decided to just cook it exactly as I would have cooked the pork and it was SO GOOD. Yum!

J loved it too - we let her pick the vegetables and as always broccoli is one of her favourites. I think next time we let her pick, we'll specify that they should be different colours (although peas and broccoli are two of my favourites too). We got a good four meals out this. I'm looking forward to trying it with actual pork too.

A pancake lover's pancake...

36.37 Try 50 new recipes

My house smells like Christmas. And I'm okay with that even though Christmas is still over two months away.

I saw these tasty looking pancakes and knew we were going to try them. I didn't realize it would be so soon...J asked for special pancakes this morning (we're a pancake family and Sunday is usually pancake day at our house)and I immediately thought of these.

They were so thick and fluffy and light. I realized I need to replace my ginger and nutmeg, because there just wasn't enough of those flavours (and when I smelled them before I put them in, I thought they were a bit weak), but that's my fault not the recipe's.

We'll be making these again for sure - I made two changes - I doubled the recipe because 2-3 servings doesn't usually manage to fill up the hungry people at our house (there were only 3 pancakes left and I'm sure they'll be gone before lunch) and I didn't have Greek yogurt so we used 3%.

I have made a few of Jenna's recipes and I've loved all of them...if you're looking for something new, I recommend her site for sure (she does vegetarian and vegan recipes as well as meat).

White Bean and Basil Salad

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So the cookbook deemed this an Italian recipe. Makes sense. Italians like to incorporate the red, white and green of their flag into their food. Too bad some silly person bought Romano beans instead of Cannellini or Navy Beans...that person would be me. My excuse, and I'm sticking to it, is that they were probably on the shelf next to each other and I was shopping with my not-quite-three-year-old and that makes it hard to concentrate.

It would be every so much prettier with white beans (sorry for the crappy photo. It was late and we wanted to eat and the light was strange). It was so good though. I have professed my love for basil before and the dressing on this salad was pretty much just basil and olive oil. HEAVEN. (oh, I'd add another pepper or two to it if I made it again. Just for some extra vegetables and colour)

This was supposed to be Alex's meal, but because of last minute schedule changes and unexpected out-of-town guests taking us out for dinner, I ended up making it on Friday. It is so easy. And Alex will have the chance to make it later in the summer.

Black Bean "Sliders"

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We weren't sure how many people were planning on coming or how long they were going to stay on Sunday afternoon, so we planned for some more dinner-like appetizers that I figured we could bring out later in the afternoon if we needed them or they could just become our dinner if we didn't.

I didn't really know who was coming to the party, but I did know that there was potentially a bunch of vegetarians, one or two gluten allergies, and maybe a vegan (hi Heddy...that gave you away!). So we stocked up on some of Alex's favourite meat-based, boxed stuff (sausage rolls anyone) and I decided to make some vegan sliders to go with them. I was going to do meat sliders too, but in the end I decided the meat eaters could eat the vegan ones and they wouldn't die. Really.

I searched the internet for burgers that were vegan but also didn't have soy in them. I decided on Emily's recipe at Daily Garnish. Her recipe makes six burgers but I made 16 little ones.

We didn't end up eating them on Sunday - there was so much food and the thought of eating something hot in our sweltering house was just too much. J and I had them for dinner last night. I cooked half of them and froze the other half - I just spread them out on a sheet so they weren't touching and tonight I'll stick them in a bag...yay dinner for another night or two!

[yeah, yeah, not vegan with that cheese on there, but I'm not a vegan, so it's all okay!]

They were so yummy - even J ate hers (although she took the burger apart and ate the bun, cheese and patty separately - and she removed all the whole beans from the patty first). I put some leftover guacamole on mine and I might use a bit of salsa the next time...yum! I think I'd put in less cinnamon when I make them again...eight sliders meant dinner for me and J last night with leftovers for me and Alex today. YUM!

Salmon cakes

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If you’ve been following my menu planning, you might have noticed that Salmon Cakes keep showing up. But one way or another they just haven’t actually made it to our plates. Until tonight.

I had trouble finding a recipe that didn’t have mayonnaise or mustard in it, but I finally ended up finding two (I’m sure there are more, but at that point I stopped looking). One is from Canadian Living and uses canned salmon, the other from Jamie’s Food Revolution and calls for fresh salmon. They’re similar recipes and we decided to try the fresh salmon recipe first (nothing against canned, we just happened to pick up some very lovely, very fresh salmon at the Granville Island Market yesterday).

They turned out wonderfully! Even though, again, I forgot parsley and had to substitute basil. Oh well, I love basil.

The recipe suggested these were easy to freeze, so instead of eight cakes, I made ten and froze half. Now we have dinner in the freezer for another night. These ones are fried (the Canadian Living ones are baked) and I might try baking them the next time…

Dinner was so good. We’re at the tail end of asparagus season and I’ll be so sad to see it go. It’s one of my absolute favourite vegetables!

Tuscan Tuna & Bean Salad

36.33 Try 50 new recipes

So this is me, ignoring the stuff that's in the queue and just getting on with it...Queued recipes will make it up here...eventually...

Last night's dinner was Tuscan Tuna & Bean Salad from Dinner in Minutes. When my mom went back to work when my sisters were in high school, someone gave this book to my mom because it was a great cookbook for working moms. My mom never used it. Partly because she only went back to work for a few months and partly because the after school routine was a bit nutso at our house - both my sisters were on the swim team and had other extra curricular activities as well - my mom had nusto dinner routines down pat before she went back to work.

I inherited the cookbook not long after (or possibly shortly before) J was born. The subtitle of the book is "Memorable Meals for Busy Cooks." Was my mom trying to tell me something? I ignored the cookbook thinking it was one of those cookbooks that is all about good food but it's really just a bunch of pre-prepared food dumped together to make one dish. For a whole bunch of reasons, we don't eat much that comes in a package.

I was pleasantly surprised when I actually opened it and read the recipes over the weekend looking for meals for this week...there's good stuff made from scratch in there!

The book pairs this with a zucchini and tomato salad that looks yummy except that raw tomatoes are not my friend. Since it was just J and I and I wasn't convinced Alex would eat the zucchini, I just made the bean salad. And served it the way the book suggested. Except I didn't heat the bread up...the description says it's perfect for warm evenings but then it wants you to turn the oven on? UGH. Our bakery fresh bread was fine not heated up! I made two little tweaks to the recipe too...I had parsley on my list, but somehow it never made it into the grocery cart. I had some basil that was on its last legs in the fridge, so I substituted that (I LOVE basil) and swapped the red wine vinegar for balsamic. I used white kidney beans because the store I was at last night had the most pathetic selection of beans. I think I'd use navy or Great Northern the next time - I prefer their slightly firmer texture. Or if I think of it far enough in advance I'd do my own...And I'd make it with lots more basil. Or I'll try the parsley.

This meal is supposed to serve four, but I think it made a lot more. We all had it for dinner last night and J and I both have some in our lunches today and there's enough for dinner tonight if I add some other veggies on the side..

This is yummy. This is summer-perfect food. I will be making this again.  Often I think. Oh, and I think the leftovers would be yummy stuffed into a pita or a wrap too...mmmm....

Channa Masala awesomeness

36.32 Try 50 new recipes

I've been meaning to try this recipe that Jenna posted on Eat, Live, Run for AGES. [Go check it out because the picture tutorial is really good!]

It was sooooooo good. It was so quick. Both Alex and J ate it and J asked for seconds. Now, J wasn't going to eat it because "those are yucky beans" but when I told her they are actually called chick peas, she decided they were good. Because, you know, they're like chicken but they're peas but they're not green. Whatever, I'm not entirely sure how an almost 3 year old brain works, but please don't tell her they're also called garbanzo beans.

I served it with brown rice, green beans and asparagus. J has developed an aversion to the tops of asparagus (which is okay with me, I like them) so she had just parts of the stem. She figured she had two kinds of asparagus which means she ate the green beans (see above: yucky beans).

I made three tiny modifications - I only put in about 1/8 of tsp of cayenne because I knew if there was more I would be the only one eating it. I used a 28oz can of tomatoes, by accident, but because our beans usually come in 19oz cans, not 15 oz cans, it needed the extra tomato. And there was no jalapeño in it because I didn't have one. I went shopping and forgot to get one so J and I stopped at the veggie store on the way home to pick up blueberries, but they don't carry them. I would definitely add it the next time.

I found that it made more than 4 servings (probably something to do with the extra 13 oz of tomatoes and the extra 8 oz of  beans) so J and I got to take it in our lunch and there is some left for dinner tonight too.

It was good. If J asks for seconds AND asks for it in her lunch, well, then a recipe is a keeper.

Deliciousness, Part Two

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After our little dinner party, I had an entire loaf of leftover french bread that didn't graduate to garlic bread, so I decided that in the name of not wasting anything, we needed to have french toast the morning after we had our cousins over...

Except J got up first on Sunday morning and DEMANDED porridge. Who can argue with that?

But that meant I had a very stale loaf of bread on Sunday. And then I remembered that lovely, divine, scrumptiousness known as baked french toast. And since Pioneer Woman treated us so well the night before, I went straight there to see what I could find.

And I found Cinnamon Baked French Toast. And immediately started salivating.

I made it on Sunday night and got up before my alarm to dump it in the oven on Monday morning (you can see it soaking up the goodness in the second last picture here, middle shelf, right side.

Anyway, I put it in the oven, went right back to sleep, and when my alarm went off for real, our house was filled with the heavenly smell of cinnamon goodness.


See? Cinnamon goodness. I'd totally dress this up with some apples, cranberries and pecans, but it was divine just like that. J wasn't sure about it. She kept asking if the squishy bits were mashed potato or egg. She doesn't like crunchy stuff, so she gave me all her edge bits. She did make an exception to the crunchy rule and devoured as much of the struesel topping as she could.

I only made two small changes to this recipe - I didn't use the cream and it was fine. I also added more flour to the struesel topping because it wasn't dry enough...

So good. Will be making this again. For me and Alex. J told me when we got home on Monday afternoon that she didn't like "that porridge we had this morning" and could I please just "make the other kind of yummy porridge" from now on.

Fine.

Party pooper...

So good. So easy. Make it.

YUM.

Deliciousness, Part One

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So a few weeks ago I made the Creamy Chicken Spaghetti Casserole from Pioneer Woman's website.


And it was pretty good...not quite creamy enough for me (and I'm not a big creamy fan) but it was good.

So when we decided to have lots of loud and noisy and talkative and hungry Stewart cousins over for dinner, I decided I'd make it again.

I made a little more sauce and it was perfect...


And because there were some vegetarians, I made a vegetarian version. I halved the recipe and substituted artichokes for chicken and vegetable broth for chicken broth.



And they were a hit. SOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo good. And we're still eating leftovers. And that's okay. Because we love it. So good. Except if you're two. Then you just want to eat plain bug noodles or if you're the little-bit-older-little-bit-wiser cousin, then you have your plain bug noodles with a sprinkle of parmesan. Which is fine. It means more yummy casserole for us grown ups.

Picadillo

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Canadian Living Slow Cooker cookbook to the rescue...I had some ground beef and needed a quick and easy meal that could cook for at least eight hours. We decided to try the Picadillo (minus the olives).


Do you see that? I asked Alex to pick up two packages of beef...I don't want to know how long it took him to find two packages that were EXACTLY the same weight...


Hello ugly, old, energy inefficient stove. So glad you live somewhere else now!


This is the only part that makes this recipe slower than I would like - browning the beef before you put it in the pot. I know why it's important, but I still prefer slow cooker recipes that have no prep...guess I'm lazy!


I often get this stuff ready the night before...then I can just dump it all in the slow cooker and leave the house...see above re: LAZY!


There it is...ready to cook while I work.

So, I forgot to take pictures of this when it was done…silly me! I made this back before we realized the slow cooker had decided it only wanted to work on high, so it was a bit black around the top and sides, but (and I’m not sure how this happened) the middle was okay. It didn’t taste burnt or anything...

We had it with rice and in wraps. It was good and I’ll be making it again...when we have a slow cooker that cooks on low!

Tuna Casserole

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When we were kids, we didn’t ever have tuna casserole that I remember. My mom made delicious macaroni and cheese, but I don’t ever remember having tuna casserole at home. I remember having it at my aunt and uncle’s house and I loved it. So, when I started making my own meals and when I was looking for a quick meal that’s a bit more elaborate than macaroni and cheese, I would make my own version of tuna casserole: I would just make my mom’s macaroni and cheese and add some tuna and some peas.

And that’s fine.

But it needed something. It wasn’t quite creamy enough and too cheesy.

I basically just modified the macaroni and cheese…I increased the amount of sauce by half except for the cheese, which I reduced by half. I used rotini and tons of peas. I double the amount of tuna I used. I made bread crumbs the Jamie Oliver way and included some garlic in them.

OH MY GOODNESS.


DIVINE! Even Alex who told me he prefers his macaroni and cheese without tuna and vegetables liked it. This, we will be making again! Actually, I've already made it again, a couple of times. This last time I asked J to pick out the noodles she wanted to use and she got some bug noodles...little worms and beetles and butterflies...from the Eating Right line at Safeway. She loved it!

Tuna Casserole (serves 8)
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
3 cups milk
1 cup + 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese

3 cups small pasta (ditali, spirals, macaroni)

2 cans tuna
1+ cup of peas

2 slices of bread (I use the end crusts. They spend ages in our freezer because no one really wants to eat them and they make perfect bread crumbs)
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees.

Boil water for pasta. Cook pasta according to directions on package.

Melt butter in a pot. Sprinkle flour over and mix, allow the roux to brown a little. Add the milk in gradually, about 1/2 cup at time, allowing to come to a gentle boil between additions, stirring constantly. The first few additions will be very thick and could almost form a ball, but it will turn into a sauce eventually. Stir until thick, then remove from heat. Allow to cool slightly before adding 1 cup of cheese. Stir until it melts and is well mixed. If pot is large enough, add peas, tuna and pasta, otherwise, add sauce, peas and tuna to pasta pot. Pour into a greased pan.

Process bread, oil, and garlic in a food processor to make fine crumbs. Sprinkle reserved cheese on top of pasta mixture and top with bread crumbs.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Do not allow to boil.

Rosemary Chicken and White Bean

36.27 Try 50 new recipes

Safeway makes two soups that I love...they have a mushroom soup that isn’t too creamy (I am not a huge cream soup fan) and they have a Rosemary Chicken and White Bean Soup. YUM. It reminds me of the Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup we used to eat when I was a kid. But not milky-creamy, just nice creamy. Because it's actually broth based. Even better. I don’t like to buy either of the Safeway soups very often because of the LONG list of ingredients and the salt content...UGH!


I’ve been trying to recreate the chicken soup at home...I checked out the ingredient list again and I realized that I need to add some bacon, so the next time I roast or stew a chicken, I will be trying this again. I’ve used both Great Northern Beans and White Kidney Beans and I prefer the Great Northern Beans (they’re in both prepared soups!)

I think I need to write my recipe down though…the last time I made it, I almost didn’t add tomatoes and I forget to add carrots and celery. Ummm....

Pork Chops and other beige foods

36.25 and 36.26 Try 50 new recipes

I don’t particularly like pork. So I don’t cook it. But I discovered that I was wrong last summer when my dad made yummy pork burgers. I like pork. What I don’t like is tough, dried out pork.

So I decided it was time for me to learn how to cook pork.

Easier said than done…

I picked up some boneless pork chops on special at the grocery store. I figured that if they were a disaster then at least it would be an inexpensive disaster. But once they were home I realized that boneless pork chops were probably not the best place to start. I asked the various cooks I know (in particular my mom and dad) how NOT to overcook pork chops and got some tips. The most prevalent tip was “FIND A RECIPE.” So I did. I broke out Alex’s copy of Jamie's Food Revolution, figuring if Jamie Oliver didn’t have a boneless pork chop recipe, then I was out of luck.


So, the end result might be a bit beige and brown, but these were so good. And so easy. And not tough. And didn’t overcook them. And J ate an entire one. And some of us had more than one. And some of us had random non-alcoholic German beer too.


While I was cooking them, I realized that I hadn’t really thought beyond the pork chops and the mashed potatoes Alex requested. And because it was the day before grocery day, we were out of salad and most other vegetables. But I had a head of cauliflower. So, I decided to go with a second Jamie Oliver recipe: Cauliflower Cheese. I didn’t have quite all the ingredients (missing some bacon for sure, maybe some whole milk or cream or something) but it turned out anyway. I think the next time I’d follow the directions more closely (the bacon would make it divine!), but my alterations were fine too. Cauliflower Cheese is remarkably like macaroni and cheese…I haven’t had it since I lived in London. I love that Jamie Oliver has you add a “glug” of oil to the bread when you make bread crumbs and they’re delightfully crispy when the casserole is cooked.

YUMMY! I can’t wait to try more of his recipes!!

Roasted Zucchini with Garlic

36.24 Try 50 new recipes

I had some zucchini in the fridge for a recipe that didn't happen when life went sideways in the days of evil illness. And it was at the point where it wasn't going to be good for very long. We were having salmon with roasted vegetables, so I thought I'd see about roasting zucchini. I love grilled zucchini, but I wasn't about to get the grill out if I was already roasting stuff.

I turned to the every trusty internet and found this recipe at Simply Recipes.


It turned out pretty well, although J wouldn't eat it! I didn't brush my zucchini, I tossed it like I did with the carrots and broccoli. And I didn't use herbs de provence on the other vegetables, but I did sprinkle some on the steamed potatoes. I had a hard time getting the zucchini to brown - it was pretty soft...

And two zucchinis make a whole lot of roasted zucchini. Alex took some in his lunch and I chopped the rest up and added them to scrambled eggs. I sauteed them a bit before I added them to the eggs (no oil, there was enough oil on them from being roasted).

Yum...I think we'll have this again, but I'll probably only do one zucchini at a time!